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Inherent vice: Saving masterpieces from destruction

The materials artists use in their work often alter or degrade over time, a problem that conservators call “inherent vice”. Sometimes, saving the artwork throws up scientific challenges or conflicts with the artist’s original intentions. Here are six conservation conundrums. Catherine de Lange

Vincent van Gogh: Banks of the Seine

Over time, some of the bright yellow hues in van Gogh's paintings, including this one, began to turn brown. To find out why, a team fired powerful X-ray beams at samples of chrome yellow paint from vintage tubes as well as small flecks of the brown paint from the paintings themselves. This revealed exactly what elements the paint samples contained. It turned out that the artist had mixed certain chemicals into the paint to make the yellows look brighter. The trick worked at the time but, ironically, after more than a century of exposure to ultraviolet light, chemical reactions caused the yellow to turn murky brown.

(Image: Vincent van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam/ESRF )

Chris Ofili: Afrobluff

Ofili uses elephant dung balls, polyester resin and phosphorescent paint in his work. To see how these materials fare over time, conservators at the UK's Tate Collection made replicas of his work and subjected them to tests – for example, exposing the paint to intense light, replicating the effects of ageing over hundreds of years, or dropping the canvases to see if the dung fell off. To be sure the materials they used were true to the originals, they sourced faeces from the very same elephant as the artist had.

(Image: Richard Levine/Alamy)

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Janine Antoni: Lick and Lather

In 1993, Antoni created a set of 14 self-portraits in the form of busts. Seven were cast in chocolate, which she then licked. She cast the other seven in soap then washed with them. Although gallery visitors have nibbled off parts of the chocolate sculptures, the soap has proved trickier to conserve: over time, its texture changes, bubbling and going yellow. Conservators at the Smithsonian's Hirshhorn Museum in Washington DC suggested Antoni recast the busts, mixing soap with a more stable material. But the artist refused – any replacements had to be 100 per cent soap, she said, for the art to retain its meaning.

(Image: Mary Altaffer/AP/PA)

Anselm Kiefer: Aperiat Terra et Germinet Salvatorem

Conservators go to great lengths to preserve artworks, but some artists would rather their masterpieces were left alone. Kiefer is one of them. His huge canvases evoke the chaos and destruction he witnessed growing up in post-war Germany. They are made to degrade: he incorporates perishable materials such as dried flowers and metals that oxidise over time.

(Image: Rosie Greenway/Getty)

Banksy: Girl with the Red Balloon

When artworks are painted on the buildings of some of the world's busiest cities, rather than on a canvas, they are subjected to daily wear and tear. So in the years after street artist Banksy painted Girl with the Red Balloon near London's Liverpool Street station, it became hidden by billboards and some of the paint peeled off. Earlier this year a company called the Sincura Group removed the piece to restore and then sell it, but critics say it should be left for all to enjoy. The episode has raised questions about who owns street art and whether its restoration – and sale – is in the public's best interest.

(Image: PYMCA/Getty)

Nam June Paik: Video Flag Z

After several years on show at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, this wall of 84 cathode-ray tube television sets began to break down. Soon, sets like this stopped being manufactured. Rather than remove the display permanently, the gallery decided to restore it, with the help of the artist. The easiest option would have been to use flat-screen TVs, but that would have ruined the look and feel. However, there were no old-school TVs available that had the same white casing, 10-inch screen and hidden buttons as the originals. So the team found a tedious workaround: they painstakingly emptied the original casings, then retrofitted them with high-end CCTV monitors. It was the only way to get a perfect match.